Richard Desmond is 'violent and dishonest', Bower tells law-makers

No-one seems to have noticed a comment made about Richard Desmond, the proprietor of Express Newspapers, in evidence to a parliamentary committee on 13 June.

He was said to be "a violent and fundamentally dishonest man, exactly like Robert Maxwell."

It came during evidence to joint committee on the draft defamation bill by Tom Bower, author of a biography of Desmond entitled Rough Trader.

"I have brought the book with me, as I really want you to see it," he told the committee before explaining that it had not been published because of legal action by Desmond:

"Here is a man who is very rich and very powerful, who used the libel laws to suppress the publication of my biography of him because it showed him to be a violent and fundamentally dishonest man, exactly like Robert Maxwell."

Bower went on to tell the committee about having been sued for libel by Desmond over a single paragraph in another of his books, one about the former Telegraph group owner, Conrad Black:

"He was able to launch a libel action against me but not against the publisher, which is exactly what Robert Maxwell, Richard Branson and many others did, thinking that I, by myself, would not have the financial ability to defend the case.

Fortunately, I anticipated those sort of problems and the publisher and insurer stepped in."

Bower said the overall cost of the Desmond case was £4.5m (full disclosure: I gave evidence on Bower's behalf at the trial).

Bower's concern is that the reforms outlined in the draft libel bill would not help him get his book published. "It has been legalled and set for printing," he said.

"Every publisher in London is not afraid of publishing the truth, and neither are the insurers afraid of financing the defamation action.

However, the time, costs and the fact that the complications within the trial process make it impossible to produce the book and sell it without consuming a huge amount of effort and time. That is where we are."

Bower was sued in 1988 by Maxwell over his biography Maxwell: The Outsider, which declared the Mirror group publisher to be a crook.

It was withdrawn from sale but, after Maxwell's death, became a best-seller.

Bower said: "My suggestion is that you must include in the bill a presumption of the interests of publication, as in the First Amendment in America, and that the threshold for someone like a public figure — whether Richard Desmond, an oligarch, or anyone — is to prove that the author or publishers are motivated by malice.

"Once that threshold is discussed and decided, you can go into the issues of whether it is true or whether a reputation has been affected. Until you get to that presumption, I do not think that you are handling the problem."

Bower also accused the Desmond trial judge, David Eady, of being "unreasonably prejudiced" and claimed that he "was determined to find for Desmond."